Smile Central (a selection)

 Welcome to our three-part documentary series. This is a special feature that we are offering in my birthday month. You will receive a novella launched over three formal correspondences to none other than you, R.E.D. You should feel honored — this feature was not available when Francois was spinning beans.
Remember that time your PR Whip cousin Alex “kidnapped” me with one of his friends down to Tijuana? You were out of town at a convention in Cabo with George, your instructor from the Taekwondo studio. I couldn’t reach you for 6 days, but I know the satellites are old over there. I had to fabricate a monster charade with my folks as I still lived at home. Hello?? Tijuana, alcohol, 18… keep up. The ruse was I was going to a party in SD but would be home early morning. I was also slated to start my new, part-time gig of the summer the next day at The Record Shoppe (with two p’s because we were fancy). The majestic cherry of the evening was that my parents were leaving in the morning for LAX with Maui as the target fun-zone. They were traveling with close friends who would be spending the evening and joining them in the Super Shuttle that was scheduled to launch at 9:38am the next morning. Let’s strap ourselves in now, shall we?
We park in SD and walk in. We walk past street vendors grilling meats, vegetables, and fingers. It might as well be hamsters and gumballs due to the beer consumption in the back of the PR hatchback en route from OC to TJ. Some of us are a little sideways to start. We find Avenida Revolución and it’s flooded with San Diego college-peaches. I’m 18, it’s like the 70’s but not quite. Music is throbbing house while the urinals are packed with ice. Shoulder to shoulder in every club. Lights, alcohol, sex, and music overdrive. We had just gotten there when the six bottles of shitty Corona arrive on our table. I’m wearing my tribal, reggae Stüssy cotton and feeling no pain. I’m 18 and king of Tijuana!
Thank you for reading part ONE of three. Restroom break… tEdDy.
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We will now commence part TWO of three. Please turn your angst off and focus on our Tijuana world…
“Sir, wake up, sir… wake up. We are closssed.” With a heavy “s.” I pull my head from the original table I started at the previous evening and admire the puke-splatter painting on my Stüssy. No music. No people. No friends. Bright-ass lights. Are you fucking kidding me — the entire club emptied out and not a single person tried to assist my ass. Damn, that was a good bender.
Janitor Jesus awakens me and sends me on my way to the urinals which have digested their urine-ice dinner and are now hungry for breakfast. Through an original, Charlie Chaplin-ballet performance, I am able to get the time from Jesus. It’s 4am. I head out into the darkness and realize I have to find that fucking Ford hatchback that is on the other side of the border or I am not spinning records at my new job that day and my Hawaiian souvenir will most likely be shelved for another season.
I begin my hellacious trek to the border. No cellphones back then, Kiddies. Pay phones and reasonably priced, Tijuana lap dances only. That’s what we carved out for ourselves in 1987. Alex is nowhere. I have $20 in my wallet, a phone card, and a vomit-encrusted shirt. As I walk toward the parking lot in SD and realize there are 0 cars in the lot, it hits me. I’m fucked. I walk toward the only pay phone in the area. As I reach the phone, a station wagon pulls up next to me. I would have turned a trick to get a lift back to OC but this is a Tijuana station-wagon cab. Say that again. A Tijuana station-wagon cab. Old school. I yell “WAIT!” He stops. “Can I hire you to take me home?” For the reading audience, let’s bookmark this moment, and in 23 more days the TEDDY will reveal the Lake Forest Yellow Cab story. I receive zero compensation for repeatedly mentioning cabs. He agrees to drive me to OC. There are conditions. I use my phone card and call my parents. It is 4:30am on Maui Eve. Dad answers quickly. After all, there are guests in the house. It’s like Christmas over there but things are going to change. “Hey, Dad, it’s The Teddy. I’m in a pickle and have a cab that’s going to take me home. I have $20 and he wants another $100 when I land. Ok?” My surprisingly calm papa says, “Well, I guess we need you home. Ok.” I hang up the pay phone. Big mistake.
Please stand by for part three in our hey-diddley-deedrop-three-on-me series for September… Teddy.
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I look at Manuel and he is waving his finger in front of his face like a displeased television producer. He shakes his head and states he needs to speak to the cashbox on the other end of the line. I turn back to the pay phone and use my phone card once again to call my proud parents and we race through he pleasantries. “Hey, Dad, it’s me again.” “No, really?” I explain the driver needs to validate the availability of funds upon landing at our agreed-upon destination. I hand the phone to Manuel and the mysterious conversation begins that I cannot hear. My father could have sold me to Manuel at that juncture and I would have never known. Manuel hangs up the phone and I get in the front seat of the Tijuana station-wagon cab. He tells me we have to let his family know he will be gone for a few hours. So, we drive BACK INTO Tijuana to Manuel’s house. Perhaps I have been sold. He leaves the car idling at 5am in his driveway. I look down at my crunchy shirt and decide not to become the new driver of my next adventure.
Manuel jumps back in and we hit the freeway to OC. I tell him to wake me when we reach Beach Blvd. 2.79 hours later, which seems more like a nine-minute drool creation party for my face, Manny Cabby jolts me from my baby slumber The sun is piercing through his semi-broken windshield. I have beads of sweat rising up together all over my body as if they are about to drown me in rebellion. Monday morning quarterbacking sessions revealed that, number one, there is no mention of a donkey sex-show and, number two, why didn’t you choose a corner, hop out and run? Hello? He spoke to my dad. So, we round the corner and the Super Shuttle is in the driveway loading the luggage of four sleepless travelers. I brush past my parents with my vomit-cloud cologne as my dad pays Manuel. I called out sick to work that day but brought the house down on my first shift the next day. Three months later I was fired because I wouldn’t play a country record. R.E.D., you can be covered in puke and still make miracles happen. Power UP. Life is Magic. The TEDDY.